XRP (XRP-USD) price is under pressure again, and this time the criticism is stinging. Tom Zschach, the Chief Innovation Officer at Swift, said Ripple is nothing more than a “dead chain walking.” His words come as XRP struggles to keep its DeFi activity alive and faces competition from Ethereum (ETH-USD), Solana (SOL-USD), and stablecoins like Circle’s (CRCL) USDC (USDC-USD).
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Swift Executive Sparks Doubts about Ripple
Zschach’s comments were not offhand. He argued that surviving lawsuits does not prove resilience, and that real compliance comes when an entire industry agrees on neutral standards. His point was that institutions do not want to build their future payment rails on a competitor’s chain.
The statement added weight to a belief already circulating in traditional finance. Many see stablecoins such as USDC as better positioned to anchor global settlement systems than XRP. That view is cutting directly into Ripple’s narrative that it can serve as the main bridge asset for banks and institutions.
DeFi Numbers Show XRP Falling Behind
The data backs up the criticism. XRP Ledger’s DeFi ecosystem has just $87 million in total value locked, according to DeFiLlama. Daily decentralized exchange volumes barely touch $70,000. Those numbers pale in comparison to Ethereum’s $96.9 billion locked and Solana’s $11 billion. Even Coinbase’s (COIN) Base chain, only two years old, has already built up close to $5 billion.
Derivatives tell the same story. Futures open interest on XRP lags far behind Ethereum and Solana, signaling that big institutions are not seriously involved. Without deep liquidity and developer activity, XRP looks like it is struggling to build the network effects needed for growth.
Ripple Pushes New Development to Revive Activity
Ripple has launched upgrades to attract users and developers. Automated Market Makers are being introduced with new liquidity pools. Ripple is also rolling out its RLUSD stablecoin while welcoming Circle’s USDC onto the XRP Ledger. An Ethereum-compatible sidechain is also being tested to make it easier for developers to build on XRPL.
Even so, community leaders warn that none of this will matter without real participation. As Adam Kagy, a marketplace founder, put it, “Enterprises will not build on networks with little retail participation or on-chain activity.” That comment captures the deeper issue. XRP cannot just talk about utility; it has to prove it on the ground.
XRP Faces a Centralization Test
The bigger question is whether Ripple can show that its network can handle enterprise-level adoption without centralization risks. Antony Welfare, a former Ripple CBDC advisor, argued that infrastructure reliability is what drives institutional trust. He pointed to Hyperledger Besu’s role in Ethereum as an example of what enterprise-grade adoption looks like.
If XRP cannot demonstrate the same, then stablecoins and compliance-first competitors will continue to take its place. At $2.7966 today, XRP price reflects both its survival and its struggles.
